GarageBand to Revive Old MP3.com Archive

By CARL BIALIK
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE
April 18, 2004 10:44 p.m.


GarageBand.com plans to revive a large archive of independent bands' songs stored on MP3.com, tunes that were feared lost following the recent sale of some of that site's assets to CNET Networks Inc.

The move means that about 250,000 bands that had music on MP3.com can easily reincarnate their music Web sites at closely held GarageBand, at www.mp3isback.com. GarageBand, which provides free and paid services to promote bands online, already had about 100,000 bands on its site before reviving the MP3.com archive, and is bulking up its roster just as CNET plans to start a rival music-download site.

"We're basically slightly beating them to the punch by resurrecting the [former MP3.com] archive," said Ali Partovi, chief executive of GarageBand.

The fate of the MP3.com archive had been unclear since late last year. In November, CNET bought the MP3.com domain name and trademark from Vivendi Universal SA's U.S. Internet unit, as part of a plan to launch its own music site, but couldn't acquire the band information. Those assets went to TruSonic Inc., formed by former Vivendi Universal Internet executives, who have been selling mixes of some of the music to bars and other venues and are now licensing the music and band Web sites to GarageBand.

As part of its deal with TruSonic, GarageBand got exclusive rights to contact the roughly 85% of MP3.com artists who had licensed their music to TruSonic, and to invite them on to its site. Those who agree to revive their music Web sites will get to post three songs for free; they'll have to pay $99 for unlimited music storage. Restoring the content will take just a few mouse clicks and a few minutes, said Mr. Partovi. The site was available to revive more than 1.5 million songs in all.

CNET, meanwhile, soon plans to relaunch the name MP3.com as a music information site and is encouraging artists to reload their music at a sister site, music.download.com. CNET is offering 50 megabytes of free music storage, enough for five to 10 songs recorded at high quality levels.

To CNET, the news that the music could be revived at all came as a surprise. "We were told we could not buy the artists' music files and personal information because of the Vivendi privacy policy," a CNET spokeswoman said. "We tried everything imaginable to save those files."

Attempts to contact Vivendi Universal Net USA Group Inc., the Vivendi unit that operated MP3.com, were unsuccessful Friday.

"On the eve of CNET's own efforts to launch its own service, we're basically slightly beating them to the punch by resurrecting the archive," says Ali Partovi, chief executive of GarageBand.

As part of the GarageBand deal, TruSonic will also seek to sign up more independent artists from among GarageBand's existing artists. The company creates mixes that it sells to stores and restaurants as background music, then transmits to them over the Web to a small device it supplies. TruSonic's independent music mix carries a list price of $30 a month per location in a store; mixes including some major-label music are slightly more expensive. Among the customers: Rubio's Fresh Mexican Grill; the Carlsbad, Calif.-based company plays Mexican-themed music in all 150 of its restaurants. TruSonic pays royalties to licensed artists from a pool; it declines to say how much it pays.

"We think it's a good way for artists to get exposed," says Dan O'Neill, chief technology officer and co-founder of closely held TruSonic, based in La Jolla, Calif.

By early Friday, 1,440 of 33,040 artists contacted had opted in to the new service.

Several former MP3.com artists said they were surprised their content had survived but would accept GarageBand's offer as another way to expose their music.

Rick Munarriz, a 36-year-old Miami pop musician, said he found all the different companies involved confusing, but ultimately signed up. "It saved me a lot of trouble," he said. He also plans to sign up for CNET's new site. "Why not stick your foot into every door?" he asked.

Write to Carl Bialik at